The Grow Your Private Practice Show

Is the Marketing Advice You're Following Already Out of Date? There's so much marketing advice out there for counsellors. Blog more. Post on social media. Try this new tool. Follow that latest trend. But how much of it is actually worth your time? Well, I've been revisiting a book about marketing for counsellors from almost seven years ago, fully expecting to find a few things that made me cringe....

Could Your Photograph Be Costing You Counselling Clients? When was the last time you looked at the photographs you're using on your website, online directory profiles and social media through the eyes of a prospective counselling client? Not to check your wrinkles, your hair or whether you've somehow acquired an extra chin. Believe me, I know all about that. But to think about what your photograph...

How long have you been meaning to review your counselling fees? You know it's something you probably ought to do, but then you think about telling your clients, worry about how they'll react, and somehow it gets pushed to the bottom of the list. Again. But what if there's something about the way we approach increasing counselling fees that's making the whole thing harder than it needs to be? In th...

'Nobody Around Here Can Afford Counselling.' But How Do You Know? What if you're earning less from your private practice than you could be, simply because of something you've convinced yourself is true? Ouch. It's surprisingly easy to make decisions about your business based on what you think people want, need or can afford. And those decisions could be costing you money. The annoying thing is, yo...

You’ve been paying for that online directory for months.maybe even years. It doesn’t seem to be bringing you many clients, so perhaps you should cancel it. Except... what if you cancel it today and next week the perfect client would have found you there? So how do you know when to keep paying, when to change something - and when it really is time to call it a day? In this episode, I’m using a real...

Does blogging still work – especially now AI can answer almost any question in seconds? It’s a fair question. Because if you’re going to spend a couple of hours writing a blog, you want it to do more than sit looking pretty on your website. But perhaps we’ve been judging whether a blog ‘works’ in completely the wrong way. In this episode, I’m looking at what’s changed, what hasn’t – and why gettin...

What’s the best way to market your private practice? You might expect me to have a straightforward answer to that. After all, I’ve been helping counsellors with their marketing for years. But I don’t. And actually, I think that matters. In this episode, I’m looking at why the question we tend to ask about marketing might not be the most useful one — and what to ask instead if you want to spend les...

Have you ever had something on your to-do list for so long that it’s somehow become enormous in your head? I was watching one of my slightly addictive decluttering videos recently when a woman tackled a job she’d been putting off for three years. It took her 12 minutes. And watching her made me realise something about the way we approach marketing our private practices. In this episode, I’m talkin...

You wanted to be a counsellor. You did the training, the placements, the supervision, the nerve-racking first client... and then somehow you ended up worrying about websites, directories, SEO, marketing and whether you're doing enough to get clients. But what did you actually want all this for? In this episode, we're looking beyond ‘I need more clients’ and thinking about the working life you were...

How much time are you wasting trying to save time? How many times have you decided that THIS is the week you’re finally going to get organised? Maybe you’ve bought a new notebook, downloaded an app or spent hours setting up a system that is definitely going to make everything easier. I’ve been doing exactly that while getting ready to launch Find Your Focus. And after several attempts, one impress...

Should Counsellors Use Testimonials and Google Reviews? Testimonials are brilliant for marketing. They build trust, offer reassurance and give someone an insight into what it might be like to work with you. So surely asking a happy client for one is a no-brainer? Well... when you're a counsellor, it's a little more complicated than that. I've noticed the question of testimonials and Google reviews...

You’d think that after creating hundreds of blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos between us, my friend and counsellor Sarah Dosanjh and I would have this content creation thing pretty much sorted by now. You’d be wrong. Recently, we’ve both missed some of our usual publishing dates, which got us talking about consistency, what keeps us creating after all these years and, more importantly, why we’re...

Why People Stop Going to Counselling – And Never Come Back Have you ever found yourself wondering why a client came to one or two sessions… and then never booked again? It's one of the hardest parts of being a counsellor. Your mind starts trying to fill in the blanks. You replay conversations, question yourself and wonder whether there was something you missed. But what if you've been asking the w...

Have You Lost Your Mojo? Have you ever found yourself thinking, 'I just can't be bothered anymore' ? Perhaps you're putting things off, struggling to get motivated or wondering whether you've simply fallen out of love with private practice. Maybe you've even caught yourself thinking, 'Shall I just pack it all in and go and get a 'proper' job?' If so, you're definitely not the only one. In this epi...

Have you ever wondered whether your website makes as much sense to your future clients as it does to you? One of the things I've noticed after reviewing hundreds of counselling websites is that it's surprisingly easy to forget what it's like not to know what we know. We naturally write using the language we've spent years learning, often without realising that some of those words can leave potenti...

You've spent time creating a professional website. It looks good, you've explained what you do, and you're proud of how it represents your practice. So why aren't more people getting in touch? In this episode, I'm exploring one of the biggest misconceptions about counselling websites. It isn't always the design, your qualifications or even your SEO that's stopping people from contacting you. Inste...

Running a private practice teaches us all sorts of practical things. We learn about websites, marketing, SEO, blogging, Google Business Profiles... the list goes on. But what if some of the biggest lessons have nothing to do with marketing at all? This week, I share something that happened during the recent UK heatwave that completely caught me by surprise. After missing a podcast episode for the...

Have you ever spent ages thinking about your homepage, your blogs or your directory profile... and then completely forgotten about your contact page? You're not alone. Most counsellors put a lot of effort into getting people to visit their website. But when someone finally decides they might want to get in touch, what happens next? In this week's episode, I'm talking about one of the most overlook...

Have you ever had that experience where you attend a training course, read a book or listen to a podcast and realise you already know most of it? That's what sparked this week's episode. It's easy to assume that if something feels obvious to us, it must be obvious to everyone else too. But what if that's not true? What if some of the things you've stopped noticing are actually some of the most val...

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone else has somehow worked it all out? That they're more confident, more organised, more successful, and somehow managing to keep up with all the things you're convinced you should be doing? Perhaps you've found yourself thinking: 'I should have sorted my website by now.' 'I should be posting more.' 'I should know what I'm doing by now.' If any of that sounds...

If you've ever looked at another counsellor's website and thought: "That sounds really professional. Maybe I should say something like that." … you're not alone. Most counsellors learn how to be counsellors before they learn how to market themselves, so it's only natural that we look around at other websites and directory profiles for clues about what we're "supposed" to say. The trouble is that w...

What if the reason marketing feels so hard… is because you’ve been trying to do it in a way that doesn’t actually fit you? Because so many counsellors believe they need to be: Louder More visible More confident online Or constantly “performing” in order to grow their practice And this conversation goes in a very different direction. This week, I’m joined by the fabulous Melitta Campbell, award-win...

There are some blogs you sit down and plan, and then there are the ones that keep coming back when you’re trying to switch off. This episode is about one of those. It started with something I kept noticing about counsellors, and the more I saw it, the harder it became to ignore. Not just what people were struggling with, but what they were making it mean about themselves… and how much weight that...

If you’ve come across terms like E-E-A-T or YMYL recently and thought… “I feel like I should know what that means…” You’re definitely not alone. In this episode, I’m joined by Theo Ruby - someone I’ve worked with for years and regularly refer people to when they need help with the tech and SEO side of their website. We’re talking about what’s actually changing when it comes to Google… and why, for...

There are a few things I see on counselling websites all the time. They’re not big, obvious mistakes. In fact, they’re usually things you’ve added because you’re trying to do things properly - be clear, professional, and helpful. But the way they show up can quietly change how your website feels to someone who’s already unsure about reaching out. And that small shift? It can be enough to make some...